It was summertime. It was hot. It was time to cool off at the drive-in…

Automobiles loaded with families or sweethearts or pals and pets assembled on summer nights at local drive-in movie theaters all over America. The pilgrimage was a time-honored tradition stemming from Depression days when cheap entertainment thrived. Families could spend a whole evening together; the little ones could drop off to sleep in the back seat while mom and dad enjoyed their popcorn and soda and forgot about paying babysitters.

The East Drive In, circa 1960s.

Of course, the drive-in had a few drawbacks. The crackling noise from the squawky box hanging on the driver’s window could be hard to decipher. The under-lit projection could make it seem the whole movie was shot at midnight. Or the greasy goodies from the snack bar could have repercussions. But for an inexpensive night out, it could hardly be beat (did anyone ever really hide in the trunk of a car to get in free, or is that an urban legend?).

The technology evolved, and as the photo below of the Valley Drive-In Theater shows, by 1953 there were major changes afoot. Here, the manager of the Valley Drive-In, Leonard Albertini, right, shows his projectionist Leon Barefield a reel of 3-D film, comparing it in size to a conventional reel of film held by Barefield.

Projectionist at Valley Drive-In compares reels.

Today, the remaining drive-ins may be going digital, but the experience doesn’t change for the customer.

The Empress at 1625 Curtis Street was one of many theaters on Denver’s theater row.

Originally called the Majestic, the theater was built in 1907. It was renamed the Empress when Denver Post owners Frederick Bonfils and Harry Tammen purchased it around 1913.

In much the same way Bonfils and Tammen boisterously promoted the newspaper, they used their marketing skills to attract patrons to the theater.

In addition to the vaudeville acts that were popular at the time, they encouraged anything that would draw a crowd. They sponsored Charleston marathons and banana eating contests. They held saxophone, fiddle and harmonica playing competitions. There were car giveaways and lectures on dressmaking. Psychics, acrobats and flagpole sitters were hired to perform. One pole sitter set a record of 602 hours.

Sometimes they’d bring the theater acts to the newspaper. There are stories in our archives of wire walkers, jugglers and bands entertaining outside the building.

The theater also staged musical comedies and showed movies. In 1928, the Empress ran 32 musicals. “Hot Tamale Molly,” “Lady Lightfingers,” “Calamity Corners” and “Dolly of the Follies” were a few.

The Empress closed in March 1933 a month after Bonfils died. It was leased and reopened in October the same year. The Bonfils’ estate sold the Empress in 1936 for $75,000 and for a while it was called the Center Theater.

Curtis Street in the 1920s. Photo Courtesy of The Denver Public Library Western History Department

The “great white way” lights of Denver’s theater row were so bright it was said that street lamps were never used.

Harry Lubelski started the trend of illuminating the outside of the buildings on Curtis Street when he installed the first electric lights at his Novelty Theatre in 1903.

When these photographs were taken around 1925, Curtis Street had at least 13 vaudeville and movie houses. Included were the Iris, Tabor, America, Empress, Colonial, Palace, Plaza, Paris, Strand, Isis, Rialto, Rivoli and State. The upper photo shows the Princess which later became the Victory.

Thomas Edison supposedly said Curtis Street was “the best lighted of any street in the country.”

How do authors of non-fiction books do their homework?
Book lovers may be unaware of the amount of research authors do for non-fiction writing. The Denver Post has invited local best-selling authors to discuss the research process. Readers, writers & researchers will be fascinated to hear “The Story Behind the Story” of these wonderful tales!

MARK OBMASCIK
Mark is the bestselling author of “Halfway to Heaven: My White-knuckled – and Knuckleheaded – Quest for the Rocky Mountain High,” for which he won the 2009 National Outdoor Book Award for Outdoor Literature; and “The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession,” which received five “Best of 2004″ citations by major media. A movie of “The Big Year,” starring Jack Black, Steve Martin and Owen Wilson, was released in October 2011 by 20th Century Fox. His next book, “The Diary of Attu,” will be published next year by Simon and Schuster. Obmascik was lead writer for the Denver Post team that won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting, and was the winner of the 2003 National Press Club award for environmental journalism.

“The Ledge” by Jim Davidson and Kevin Vaughan

KEVIN VAUGHAN
Award-winning journalist and author Kevin Vaughan has written for the Fort Morgan Times, the Fort Collins Coloradoan, the Rocky Mountain News, The Denver Post and is now a senior reporter at I-News at Rocky Mountain PBS. He is a 1986 graduate of Metropolitan State College. His work has been honored regionally and nationally. His 2007 Rocky Mountain News series, “The Crossing,” which examined the lifelong reverberations of Colorado’s worst traffic accident, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Feature Writing. He is the co-author (with Jim Davidson) of the best-seller, “The Ledge: An Inspirational Story of Friendship and Survival,” published by Ballantine Books.

“Murder at the Brown Palace” by Dick Kreck

DICK KRECK
Dick is a former newspaper copy editor (San Francisco Examiner and Los Angeles Times) who joined The Denver Post in 1968. He had editing jobs, wrote a city column for 18 years and “covered local television and radio. He has a BA in Journalism from San Francisco State College. Last year, he was inducted into the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame. His books include: “Colorado’s Scenic Railroads” (1997); “Denver in Flames” (2000); “Murder at the Brown Palace” (2003), which was on the Denver Post best-seller list for 22 weeks, and “Anton Woode: The Boy Murderer” (2006). His most recent book is “Smaldone: The Untold Story of an American Crime Family.” His new book is “Hell on Wheels,” about towns that lived and died with the building of the transcontinental railroad in the 1860s.

“The Spin Doctor” by Kirk Mitchell

KIRK MITCHELL
Kirk is an award-winning reporter who has worked at The Denver Post for 15 years. Based on his reporting, a department was created in the Colorado attorney general’s office to track down killers in Mexico. He is the author of “The Spin Doctor,” a story that developed from a case he profiled on the Post’s Colorado Cold Cases blog. In it, he recounts the tale of former FEMA spokesman Kurt Sonnenfeld, who claimed U.S. agents framed him for murder because of his videotapes of Ground Zero.

[Denver Post Archive]
Denver Dynamite Coach Tim Marcum has a word with lineman Charles Harris during the Denver Dynamite’s first season in 1987, as the team went on to win the determined league’s first ArenaBowl.

It’s as true in football as it is in the jungle. Only the strong survive. That’s the short story on the Denver Dynamite.

As the scrappy Arena Football League celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, its first ArenaBowl champion is a footnote in history, a little corporate genealogy and a file of tattering clips in a newspaper’s archive.

The Dynamite, the Pittsburgh Gladiators, Washington Commandos and Chicago Bruisers were the first four franchises in 1987. They played “arenaball” — eight-man football on a 50-yard indoor field. Entire rosters included 15 to 20 players who each earned $400 a game, with a $100 bonus for a win. In that glorious first season, Denver entertained the largest crowds in the league, averaging more than 12,000 fans a contest.

On Aug. 1, 1987, the Denver and Pittsburgh teams were both 4-2. The Gladiators got the top ranking by virtue of scoring more points during the season. Before a crowd of 13,232 at Pittsburgh Civic Arena, however, the Dynamite left no doubt which team was the league’s best, thumping the Gladiators 45-16. Denver wide receiver Gary Mullen was the MVP after catching nine passes for 123 yards, including three touchdowns from former Vanderbilt star Whit Taylor.

These photos appeared on the front page of The Denver Post on Dec. 30, 1915, in the afternoon edition after Harry Houdini made good on his guarantee that he could escape any contraption Denver police put on him, as he dangled from a chain upside down over The Denver Post building near 16th and Champa streets before a crowd of 7,000.

Denver has always opened it arms to a flamboyant showman — P.T. Barnum, Buffalo Bill Cody, Duane “Dog” Chapman, to name a few. But no star could shine brighter over the Mile High City than Harry Houdini. A century later, his is still the brand name for escape, showmanship and skepticism; Denver was a crossroads for all three.

Houdini often played Denver’s Orpheum Theater, part of the Orpheum vaudeville circuit he joined when he was 25 years old in 1899, after impressing owner Martin Beck in a beer hall in St. Paul, Minn.

It was two days before the new year in 1915 that The Denver Post played host to Houdini’s largest city stage at 16th and Champa streets, as a crowd estimated at 7,000 gathered to watch him escape a seemingly impossible bind as he dangled from a chain above the newspaper’s front door.

Safe to say this was a publicity stunt Houdini cooked up with the newspaper’s co-owner and self-described yellow journalist Harry Tammen (who once said, “The public not only likes to be fooled — it insists upon it”) and the city’s new police chief. Houdini claimed the DPD had issued him a challenge from which he could not back down. As he speaks to a Post reporter the 41-year-old Wisconsinite allegedly “smooths his curly hair and smiles,” according to the Dec. 28, 1915, edition

“And since it is to be a contest, it might as well be in public,” Houdini declared. “I have escaped before and I will escape again, unless you have a set of wizards on the police department.”

In October 1955, television studio technicians at Channel 6, located in the Emily Griffith Opportunity School, prepared for the first show to be produced for the fledgling TV station. It was a closed-circuit educational show for development and training of the Denver chapter of the National Office Management Association.

In January 1956, KRMA-TV Channel 6 began broadcasting to anyone with a television receiver.

Left to right are Gerald J. Willsea, Henry H. Mamet, station manager, and cameraman Glenn Annis.

Three of the men responsible for the station’s operations were Gerald J. Willsea, director of radio and television for the schools; Henry H. Mamet, manager; and Glenn Annis, who was a cameraman. The first programming was broadcast nightly from 6:45 to 8:45 p.m.

Sportsmen were the audience for "Let's Go Fishing," with Colbert Cushing, at left, talking to Bud Flinn of the Colorado Game and Fish Dept.

By May 1956, programming included an hour-long show called “Let’s Go Fishing,” with Colbert Cushing, a former instructor at the University of Denver fishing clinic. The program featured an anglers’ mailbag, tips on equipment, fish and road reports.

The King of Pop, Michael Jackson, died three years ago on June 25, 2009. He was one of the best-selling recording artists of all time, a 13-time Grammy winner and his creativity helped define the music video.

In memory of Michael Jackson, we would like to share our archive photos.